EU Negotiators Unable To Agree On Funding For Fisheries - Reuters

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BRUSSELS - The European Union, unable to bridge a broad north-south divide, failed on Tuesday for the second time in less than a year to agree on how to spend a multi-million-euro programme on its embattled fisheries sector.

The plan for the next seven years' spending has been on the table since July 2004, with a budget of 3.8 billion euros (US$4.86 billion). The last time ministers tried to agree on future funding was in June 2005, but the meeting ended in deadlock. "I'm not disappointed ... it's better to take more time to find a solution. I don't think there will be any possibility to sort this out before September," said Josef Proell, Austria's Agriculture and Environment Minister.

"For some countries like the United Kingdom, it was already too much from the start, they said it was too much for sustainable fisheries," he said after the talks ended.

The most controversial area concerned EU aid for replacing engines for small-scale vessels as well as cash for modernising boats: concepts that angered northern states worried about chronically low stocks depleted after years of overfishing. This is where EU countries have often clashed in a rough north-south divide, with France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal -- backed by new joiners Poland and Estonia -- demanding the right for a straight swap of engine if required

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